• Post Reply Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic
programming forums Java Mobile Certification Databases Caching Books Engineering Micro Controllers OS Languages Paradigms IDEs Build Tools Frameworks Application Servers Open Source This Site Careers Other Pie Elite all forums
this forum made possible by our volunteer staff, including ...
Marshals:
  • Campbell Ritchie
  • Jeanne Boyarsky
  • Ron McLeod
  • Paul Clapham
  • Liutauras Vilda
Sheriffs:
  • paul wheaton
  • Rob Spoor
  • Devaka Cooray
Saloon Keepers:
  • Stephan van Hulst
  • Tim Holloway
  • Carey Brown
  • Frits Walraven
  • Tim Moores
Bartenders:
  • Mikalai Zaikin

a machine to look at our future

 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 464
Ubuntu
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Is it a possibility? I heard that accouring to Einstein it is possible. Can anyone show more light on this?

Thanks
 
ranger
Posts: 17347
11
Mac IntelliJ IDE Spring
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by Venkatesh Sai:
Is it a possibility? I heard that accouring to Einstein it is possible. Can anyone show more light on this?

Thanks




Can anyone show more light on this?



Now that would be a great pun right there.

Mark
 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 1847
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Einstein doesn't rule out time travel, but provides no theory on how it could be achieved.

Of course we ARE travelling in time, at a fixed rate of 1 second per second in a single direction with no known way to speed up, slow down, or revert that travel.

Asimov wrote a story about the consequences a device to view things happening in different times.
It was rather scary, because such a device would mean the end to any form of privacy at all. Anyone with access to such a device would be capable of seeing what anyone else was doing at any time in past, present or future.
The legal implications alone would be monstrous, the social implications even worse, and he did also touch on the mental strain it would put on people (he has one woman go completely mad watching the death of her child over and over again because she is incapable of dealing with the loss).

After reading that a few times I must say I'm happy we don't have practical time viewing/travel systems.
[ October 25, 2006: Message edited by: Jeroen T Wenting ]
 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 1241
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I thought it was Clarke who wrote that book? Maybe they both wrote similar ones. In the one I read, a lot of people ended up living in dark rooms and/or wearing masks to cover their faces. Very strange.

Personally I'm not sure I want to see what happens in the future. OK, I really do want to know what happens, but not all in one go. The process of finding out will be an interesting one, and knowing it all now would be a bit like a child opening its Christmas presents a month early - it'll just spoil the surprise.

Looking into the past would be very interesting, although perhaps it would be best if it was only a long time back and not the recent past. Imagine how many questions could be answered if we happened to go back a couple of thousand years and watch what happened in some historically debated events. Or maybe that would cause more trouble then it's worth.
 
Jeroen T Wenting
Ranch Hand
Posts: 1847
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Must be something similar. The idea is not so outlandish that several authors can't come up with it independently.

After all, if a machine can look into the past (as Asimov's was designed for, to allow historians to look at historical events) it can look into the present if you just let it look an infinitely small amount into the past (let's say a picosecond).
 
Dave Lenton
Ranch Hand
Posts: 1241
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by Jeroen T Wenting:
Must be something similar. The idea is not so outlandish that several authors can't come up with it independently.

I wonder if there are many original ideas left in sci-fi. More then any other fiction genre, sci-fi authors have used their imaginations as much as possible to explore possible subjects, so perhaps there isn't much new stuff to write about now.

Often sci-fi seems to be about exploring the possible side effects of whatever technology or science is currently new and exciting, so perhaps some cool original sci-fi will need to wait for the next big scientific breakthrough.
 
Bartender
Posts: 1155
20
Mac OS X IntelliJ IDE Oracle Spring VI Editor Tomcat Server Redhat Java Linux
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Here's a story about someone who cliamed to be a time traveler; John Titor. Posted a few messages. I think it was a joke...
 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 478
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
If time travel is every going to be possible, someone from the future would travel to the past and let them know about it.
:roll:
 
Mark Spritzler
ranger
Posts: 17347
11
Mac IntelliJ IDE Spring
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by Dave Lenton:
Often sci-fi seems to be about exploring the possible side effects of whatever technology or science is currently new and exciting, so perhaps some cool original sci-fi will need to wait for the next big scientific breakthrough.



Well you did qualify that with "often" But a number of times too Sci-fi is written to mock the average everyday real life, but in the context of something outlandish that it is satire. I find Alan Dean Foster and Kurt Vonnegut does this alot.

Mark
 
Jeroen T Wenting
Ranch Hand
Posts: 1847
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by Ajay Mathew:
If time travel is every going to be possible, someone from the future would travel to the past and let them know about it.
:roll:



Not necessarilly. Timetravel might turn out to be a oneway street, one where you can only travel to the future, never to the past.
Or (as Asimov in another book proposed) it might be used to set up some sort of intertime police and trade agency, with the knowledge of its very existence being suppressed for all who don't need to know about it.
In that scenario it might exist even now but noone would know about it except the people working there.
Asimov in that model postulated that this agency is trying to protect humankind from extinction by changing history in realtime in order to prevent inventions and discovery that will bring that extinction about from going anywhere.
 
Rancher
Posts: 13459
Android Eclipse IDE Ubuntu
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Some additional points:

* If you define 'time traveler' as a person who's personal clock is out of synch with the rest of the human race, then anyone who has spent a significant amount of time in space qualifies, due to escaping Earth's gravity well and the speed at which they orbit the Earth.

* There was a party a while back that was advertised as welcoming time travelers. If any attended, they didn't make themselves known.

* It may be that source and destination hardware is necessary before time travel is a reality. That is, to travel to the future you would have to build the machine now, but you couldn't travel to the past as the destination machine would not exist.

* Worm holes in space are automatically time machines (assuming you can control one) since you can alter the age of one end by accelerating it to near light speed, taking it on a journey and then bringing it back, as then one end would (could) come out several years before the other.
 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 502
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by Jeroen T Wenting:

Asimov in that model postulated that this agency is trying to protect humankind from extinction by changing history in realtime in order to prevent inventions and discovery that will bring that extinction about from going anywhere.



Are you sure you aren't talking about "The Foundation Series"? In that series the Foundation had developed a branch of mathematics that allowed people to "calculate" the differrent scenarios that could happen in the future. They would subtly try to influence the events today to control the future.

They did have a machine that would show the differrent futures as a complicated graph. I guess you could interpret that as "having a machine that sees the future"
 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 179
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Here is one device that will tell the future.

 
S Venkatesh
Ranch Hand
Posts: 464
Ubuntu
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I read this somewhere. If we have to travel to future, then we have to travel faster than light. I think this is really impossible as it would mean that you get converted to energy :roll:
 
author and cow tipper
Posts: 5009
1
Hibernate Spring Tomcat Server
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Time travel isn't a relativity problem - it is a problem related to the conservation of mass.

The law of conservation of matter says that matter cannot be created or destroyed, but it can only change form. Going back in time would create matter in a time where it previously did not exist.

This simple law eliminates the entire possibility of time travel.

At least, that's my take.

-Cameron McKenzie
 
S Venkatesh
Ranch Hand
Posts: 464
Ubuntu
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
can something in any form exist in future which if it was not in past?
 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 3852
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I feel many times that this has happened in past also, the same situation have occurred in past also... :roll:
 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 1871
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by David O'Meara:
Some additional points:
Worm holes in space are automatically time machines (assuming you can control one) since you can alter the age of one end by accelerating it to near light speed, taking it on a journey and then bringing it back, as then one end would (could) come out several years before the other.



I've seen in discovery that there are some serious research going on creating artificial wormholes through high intensity laser beams. When any such hole will be created they are certain some particles will come out of those wormholes which researchers might have put in the future.
 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 354
Eclipse IDE Oracle Java
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by Venkatesh Sai:
Is it a possibility? I heard that accouring to Einstein it is possible. Can anyone show more light on this?

Thanks



Since theory of relativity has time as the fourth dimension, all you have to do is change your frame of reference and you become a time traveler! Problem is that it is only appreciable at speeds approaching that of light.

Easier said than done. But take a look at worm hole theory
Link
 
S Venkatesh
Ranch Hand
Posts: 464
Ubuntu
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by rathi ji:
I feel many times that this has happened in past also, the same situation have occurred in past also... :roll:



i too have felt the same many times!! i was thinking its happening only for me!! suprized to see that its happpening for you also
 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 266
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by rathi ji:
I feel many times that this has happened in past also, the same situation have occurred in past also... :roll:



Deja Vu?
 
Dave Lenton
Ranch Hand
Posts: 1241
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by Mark Spritzler:
But a number of times too Sci-fi is written to mock the average everyday real life, but in the context of something outlandish that it is satire.

Sure, they quite often have a close parallel of a feature of modern society, but also with an exaggerated version of the latest technology thrown in. They probably do this because the technology on its own isn't really enough for an entire story line (something which Clarke often ignored!), so they add a social factor which the audience can connect with. Often Star Trek was a bit like Neighbours in space.
 
Dave Lenton
Ranch Hand
Posts: 1241
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Another problem with time travel is that it breaks the idea that anything with any information content cannot go faster then light. A book I once read got around this by making the time travel device (a worm hole) also a distance travelling device. A person then travels the same distance in light years as they are going forwards in normal years e.g. if they were travelling one year into the future, the wormhole would also take them one light year away.

I'm sure it still had some theoretic problems concerned with coming back through the tunnel though.
 
Jeroen T Wenting
Ranch Hand
Posts: 1847
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
It has been proven that the speed at which bad news spreads is infinite (see the Guide).
 
Jayesh Lalwani
Ranch Hand
Posts: 502
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Originally posted by Kameron McKenzie:
Time travel isn't a relativity problem - it is a problem related to the conservation of mass.

The law of conservation of matter says that matter cannot be created or destroyed, but it can only change form. Going back in time would create matter in a time where it previously did not exist.

This simple law eliminates the entire possibility of time travel.

At least, that's my take.

-Cameron McKenzie



The law of conservation of mass is proved to be not true. It is true in most cases but there are exceptions. For example, if you have some radioactive material in a box that is oozing radiation. You weigh it, keep it in a box, and forget it for 10 years. You open the box and weigh it again it will weigh less. The reson is that it's mass is being converted to energy, and Einstein's theory of relativity gives a formula for that E = mc-squared. For a unit of energy that the radioactive materialradiates, it will lose E/c-squared mass. That's a very very small amount.

So, since, it is possible to convert mass to energy, theoritically it should be possible to convery energy to mass. But you would need a lot of energy.
 
Jeroen T Wenting
Ranch Hand
Posts: 1847
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
the law stands, but has to be ammended to read "conservation of mass/energy".
 
Greenhorn
Posts: 2
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
A machine to look at the future or the past. I believe that people are going about it all wrong in trying to invent a system that uses mass and energy because our current technology at least at the private level is not up to speed. I do believe goverments secret technology programs are closer to achieving this. But for the average person here is a system I believe would fit the bill for a time machine to look at the future or the past.
First, we need a math system to store information say in a number no bigger or smaller than five digits. We take a peice of information. Run it through some math equations, and get a five digit number. We take another peice of information with our current five digit number and fun them thru the math equations to get a new five digit number. We can do this for as long as their is information to store forever and ever always getting five digit numbers.
When we decode we take our five digit number, put it to a sytem to get its current information, then run it backwards thru our equations to get the previous five digit number. We take that number run it thru a system to get its information that rerun it backwards thru the equations to get the previous 5 digit number. Over and over again until all of the information is decoded.
We are in essence storing information in time now not space. Know, we take a video camera. Film some video. Code it half of it pix by pix with our five digit number system. Decode it, when we get errors in the last half of the video we run our equations thru and alignment process to get our equations to align with the place in time and space we are recording.
When we can decode the first have of the video and the second half of the video which was never encoded into the equations now we can fast forward or reverse our equations to decode the pixels to see what is happening long before the video camara was turned on and long after the video was turned off. That is how I built my time machine. Now you take it to the next step and move the video camara around but that is more than im going to say here. Works good.
 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 112
Android Eclipse IDE Chrome
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Google has made it!!!
 
I miss the old days when I would think up a sinister scheme for world domination and you would show a little emotional support. So just look at this tiny ad:
a bit of art, as a gift, that will fit in a stocking
https://gardener-gift.com
reply
    Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic